


The Long Way Home

by LaCinderel



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Afterlife, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dark Tower References, Dead Eddie Kaspbrak, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Eddie feels things, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Gay Richie Tozier, I kinda know where I am going with this, I mean so repressed that even he doesn't know he's gay yet, I suck at tagging since this is my first fic here, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Making this up as I go along, My First Work in This Fandom, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Reddie, Repressed Eddie Kaspbrak, Second Chances, Slow Burn, other characters may show up later - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2020-12-14 13:26:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21016511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaCinderel/pseuds/LaCinderel
Summary: Death doesn't have to be forever. Eddie Kaspbrak is given a chance to get his life back - but there's a catch.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time in years since I've written fanfic for any fandom, the first time here on AO3 and the first time for IT/Reddie/gay characters. A lot of firsts, so I'm a bit nervous. Also because this has somewhat of a more complicated plot than most of the fics I've read on here so far, but I couldn't get this idea out of my head. As I said in the tags, I kind of know where I'm going with it, but I don't really know how we're gonna get there and how long it will take. Hope you will enjoy joining me on this journey, comments and kudos are greatly appreciated!

Eddie Kaspbrak had never really thought a lot about what the afterlife might look like exactly, but he sure as hell hadn’t been expecting this. So maybe he wasn’t dead after all? Hope surged within him, only to be squashed again immediately when he looked down to where his hands still clutched Richie’s leather jacket. He held the jacket away from his chest, looked at the remnants of his shirt, and swallowed hard. Yeah, he was dead, alright. No question about that – not with the gaping hole in his chest where Its claw had skewered him. No fucking way he would have survived that.

Yet here he was, in what looked like a home office of some kind, or maybe a library or a study. Bookcases overflowing with novels lined the walls, except for the wall with the big window in it. There was a big, mahogany desk there, a closed laptop on top of it. Stacks of paper were scattered around the laptop, one of the stacks held down by a stone paperweight shaped like a turtle. Bright sunlight fell through the window, warming the air and illuminating tiny specks of dust that floated lazily in the air. Eddie could faintly hear birds chirping outside, as well as the occasional distant hum of traffic passing by. He went to the window and saw a big, well-kept lawn, separated from the street by an intimidating wrought iron fence. Two bat-shaped ornaments were sitting on top of it, looking like they were guarding the closed gate.

Eddie’s fingers itched to open the window and let in some fresh air – he could still smell the sewers on his clothes and skin – but he decided against it, since he didn’t know what exactly he was dealing with here. For all he knew the air could be toxic, even though the world outside the window looked perfectly normal, and even if the air was okay, his clothes were still damp from the sewer water and he might catch a cold. Unless dead people were immune to colds, of course. That would make sense. On the other hand, who knew what would come in through the window once it was open? Pennywise could be lurking on the other side somewhere. No, best to leave the window closed.

He looked down at Richie’s jacket again, wishing his friend were here with him now. This was a confusing and frightening situation, and he’d always felt braver and stronger around Richie. Slowly, he unfolded the jacket and pulled it on. It was too big for him, but the weight of the leather felt reassuring, and he felt himself slightly relax as he rolled up the sleeves, the tightness in his chest, that he hadn’t even been consciously aware of anymore since it had seemed to be there since the moment he’d set foot in Derry for the first time in twenty-seven years, loosening up a fraction.

A sudden outburst of high-pitched yapping tore through the peaceful silence in the room, making him jump. It came from behind him. Raising his arms in a defensive stance, Eddie turned around. The yapping seemed to come from behind the closed door on the other side of the room. The door was white, but there were no words scrawled across it, Eddie noticed with a small shudder of relief. Still, he wasn’t about to open it and face the dog behind it. “No sir, not falling for that shit again,” he muttered, as he backed up until he was flush against the wall beside the window. The dog continued to bark angrily, and now Eddie could also hear it scratch its nails on the door in a frantic attempt to get inside. He looked around the room for anything he could use as a weapon, his gaze landing on the turtle-shaped paperweight. He picked it up and weighed it in his hand. It would do, he decided. When – not if, Eddie was sure the beast would find a way – the hellhound would burst in, he’d be ready.

“Molly! Down, girl! What’s gotten into you?” A man’s voice came through the door. The door handle moved slightly, and Eddie tensed, getting ready to throw the paperweight at whoever – or whatever – would come in.

The door opened and Eddie threw his turtle, only to see it sailing unimpeded through the doorway and into the hallway behind it as the man opening the door bent down to pick up his furiously yelping Corgi. The stone thunked loudly into the hallway wall, and Eddie frantically looked around the room, in search for another weapon. One of the books, maybe? Then the man rose, shushing the dog on his arm, and Eddie eyed him warily. He was tall and looked about seventy, with gray hair that was slightly too long and modern glasses framing dark blue eyes. They were friendly eyes wrinkled with smile lines. He didn’t seem like a big threat, but Eddie backed into the wall again just in case.

“Hello,” the man said, looking Eddie over with mild curiosity, his eyes widening as he took in the torn shirt and the gaping hole beneath it. “Who are you?”

“Um. Hi. I’m Eddie Kaspbrak.” Eddie saw the man’s face light up with an immediate mix of understanding and weary acceptance.

“That makes sense, with the movie coming out and all.” He sighed, his shoulders drooping. Then, to the dog, he said, “Now, Molly, I’m going to put you down and you’re going to be nice to Mr. Kaspbrak over here, okay? He’s been through enough.” He began to bend down, obviously intending to put the dog on the floor.

“No!” Eddie shouted, pressing his back more firmly into the wall. “Keep that fucking thing away from me!”

“Relax, she’s not gonna hurt you. She’s just a tiny – oh. I get it. The Pomeranian. Hold on.” He turned and put the dog in the hallway. “Stay!” He commanded, closing the door. Turning back to Eddie while smiling pleasantly, he said, “Now, Mr. Kaspbrak… Can I call you Eddie?”

“Who are you?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, did I forget to introduce myself?” Before Eddie could tell him to stay back, the man strode towards him, hand outstretched. “I’m Steve,” he said, grasping Eddie’s hand and shaking it. “Steve King. I’d add it’s a pleasure to meet you, but I have a hunch that you wouldn’t agree, given the circumstances.”

“You got that right,” Eddie said. King’s name rang a bell somewhere in the back of his head, but he figured it was because it was one of those generic names, like Smith or Jones, so he let it go again immediately. He yanked his hand out of King’s grip. “Where the fuck am I, and how did I get here?”

King stepped back, giving Eddie some much needed space. He gestured at the desk chair. “You want to sit down, Eddie, so we can talk?”

Eddie considered it, then shook his head. He wasn’t ready to trust this man enough to let go of the wall yet, even though King didn’t seem to pose any real danger. The Pomeranian hadn’t seemed like a dangerous creature at first either. “Just answer my questions. And tell me how you knew about the Pomeranian.”

“That’s… Kind of a long and hard to explain story. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather sit down?”

“I’m fine right where I am.” Eddie crossed his arms, irritation suddenly trumping his confusion and fear. “Now quit hedging and start answering my questions. If it helps, I already guessed that I’m dead, so you can skip that part of the story.”

King sighed. “Okay. You’re in my house, which is in Bangor, Maine. Well, whenever I’m not in Florida. And it’s my fault that you’re dead – but the Pomeranian wasn’t my doing. That’s on Andy. Or Gary, technically. As is the…” he gestured vaguely at his own chest, “You know. In my version, Pennywise ripped your arm off and you bled out from that. Sorry.”

“Your version of what? And what do you know about Pennywise?”

“Like I said, it’s kind of hard to explain. So maybe I should show you instead. Let’s see…” King looked around the room, like he was searching for something, until his gaze landed on the bookcase farthest away from Eddie. “Ah, there it is!” He went to get a book from the top shelf, then turned to Eddie, holding the book against his chest. “This will be a shock. I’m sorry about that, but it’s the quickest way to make you understand.” He crossed the room and handed Eddie the book.

Eddie looked down at it and felt the air leave his lungs as a sense of dread settled in the pit of his stomach. The cover of the heavy book was black, with the title stamped across the center in bold, bloodred letters. “IT?” Eddie read it in a whisper. Below the title was a drawing of a sewer grate, a nasty looking green claw coming up from the darkness underneath to curl around it. Next to the sewer grate was a paper boat. The author's name was… “Stephen King. That’s you. You wrote this?” He looked at King, who nodded. “And it’s about… the clown?”

“You may find other familiar stuff inside,” King said, and he pulled out the desk chair. “But you really should consider sitting down before you open it.”

Eddie ignored that last bit. He didn’t want to open the book, he really didn’t. But his hands seemed to have a will of their own and were already doing it. He looked down, leafed through the first couple of pages that held copyright notices and whatnot, until he came to the first page of the story. He scanned the page, flinching when he read familiar names. “Georgie?” he whispered. Bill was mentioned too, he saw. He paged through the first chapter, his hands starting to shake as he skimmed over the story of how Georgie had been killed by Pennywise. He turned to chapter two and saw that it was about the murder of Adrian Mellon, and he knew that name too, it was the gay kid who had been beaten to death at the fair and had caused Mike to call the Losers’ Club back to Derry. “How? How could you have written about…” His eyes went back to the title of the second chapter. “The year’s wrong. This didn’t happen in 1984.”

“In my version, it did. This book came out in 1986.”

“But…”

“Just keep going. Open it somewhere in the middle.”

Eddie was glad that he was still leaning against the wall, because his legs were starting to feel all rubbery. He did as King said, skipping to a random page. As he read, his legs slowly buckled and his back slid down the wall until he was sitting on the thick carpet, but he hardly noticed. He knew this scene firsthand, even though some things had been altered. But the main characters were all there – Mike, Bill, Ben, Beverly, Richie… Eddie. Eddie Kaspbrak. He felt numb as he read about him and his friends bantering over drinks and dinner, catching up after not having seen each other for twenty-seven years. His own voice seemed to reach his ears from a million miles away when he asked, “So you’re saying… What? That you’re like a fucking psychic or something? You knew that all this was gonna happen before it actually did?” But even as he said it, Eddie feared that that wasn’t what King was trying to tell him. He suddenly had the irresistible urge to cover his ears with his hands like a kid, not wanting to hear the writer’s next words, but his arms were too heavy.

“No, what I’m saying is that I _created_ all of it.” King said it apologetically.

Eddie needed a moment to process that. “Okay. So you made it up… And then it became real?”

“It was never real, Eddie.” King sat down on his own desk chair, suddenly looking very tired. “None of the things in that book are real. And that includes… Well, you know. The characters. You. I’m sorry.”

“You’re bullshitting me, right? This is some kind of prank?” King shook his head and Eddie looked down at the book in his hands again, at his own name. The names of his friends. His mind spinning, he paged through the book some more. He flinched every time something familiar jumped out at him. The Clubhouse. Beep beep Richie. Henry Bowers and the rock fight. His broken arm. His mother keeping him away from his friends. Neibolt Street. Mr. Keene and the pharmacy. The Leper. It was all there – but all slightly different from what he remembered. And yet… somehow, the things in the book rang true in his mind too. It was like one of those holographic pictures where there were two different images, depending on the angle from which you looked at it. Like he suddenly had two sets of memories. He put the book face down on the carpet, wiping his hands on his jeans as if he’d touched something dirty. “No,” he said. “Nuh-uh. I’m not buying it. I’m… I’m dreaming, that’s it! It’s not me who isn’t real, it’s you!” He sounded desperate even to his own ears. But it had to be true, this had to be just a dream. And if he just closed his eyes and went to sleep, and then opened them again, he’d be back… where? Back at the Derry Townhouse, he decided. Yeah, he’d be back in that dingy hotel room, on that sorry excuse for a bed, and it would be almost morning and everything would be alright. Well, they would still have to kill Pennywise of course, but hey, at least he now knew how to do it, right? “Right,” he muttered, and clenched his eyes shut.

“Eddie? Are you okay? Can I get you anything? A glass of water maybe?” King asked.

“Shut up. I’m trying to sleep.” Eddie replied.

“This isn’t a dream, Eddie. It’s really happening.”

“I said. Shut. The fuck. Up.” Eddie fully expected King to keep talking, but to his surprise the writer said nothing, the room growing silent. Even the dog – Molly – had quit its insistent yapping. Good. They must both be gone, then. _Had to be_. But he’d wait a while, just to make sure. He focused on keeping his eyes closed and repeating to himself that all this was just a dream, it wasn’t real, and that all he needed to do was go to sleep, then wake up and everything would be okay. “It’s not real,” he whispered for good measure.

Then he opened his eyes.

And found King looking at him, sympathy written all over his face.

“FUCK!” Eddie shouted.

Behind the door, Molly started barking again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie takes a walk with Stephen King and Molly, and learns some interesting things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not entirely happy with how this chapter turned out, but I did what I could and I think this was the best I could do with it. Hope you enjoy, and that Eddie isn't too out of character. I seem to have trouble getting into his head. But maybe that's because he's not interacting with people from his own world.
> 
> SPOILER ALERT: there are references to the Dark Tower books in this chapter. If you haven't read them and don't plan to, you have nothing to worry about. The references won't impact your understanding of this fic. But if you are reading the books now, or plan to in the near future, be warned that the references in this chapter may spoil certain events in the books for you.

The air outside, it turned out on the third day of Eddie’s stay at the King mansion, wasn’t toxic after all. And as far as he could tell, there were no monsters lurking around either. Unless, of course, you counted the Thing of Evil – as King had nicknamed Molly. The Corgi was currently running towards them as fast as her short legs could carry her, a tennis ball that King had thrown earlier firmly locked between her jaws. Eddie grudgingly admitted, but only to himself, that she actually looked kind of cute.

“Good girl!” King said, taking the ball from Molly and throwing it again. They both followed the dog with their eyes as they leisurely strolled along a meandering path in Bass Park, headed for the Main Street exit.

Eddie hadn’t realized how much he’d missed feeling the sun on his face in the past days, but he was now glad that King had spent the morning alternately cajoling and badgering him to come with him and walk Molly. Although he still wasn’t entirely convinced he wasn’t dreaming, it felt good to be outside. On the other hand, if this _was_ a dream, it was an incredibly realistic and detailed one. Case in point: right now, he could feel sweat dripping out of every pore. That probably had something to do with him wearing Richie’s leather jacket on a hot September day. He’d discarded his own clothes without second thought, gladly accepting King’s offer to borrow some of his son’s clothes for the time being. But he hadn’t let the jacket out of his sight for even a moment in the past three days, and no matter how hot a day it was, he sure as hell wasn’t going to leave it at the house now. Sure, it was bloodstained and smelled like sewer water. But it was also the only link he had left to his own life, his own world, and if he clung to the jacket like a toddler to a security blanket, well, so what?

Molly brought the ball back again, dropping it at Eddie’s feet this time and looking up at him expectantly, wagging her tail while grinning like a lunatic. He looked at King, but the writer just smirked and leaned on the cane he walked with as a result of an accident he’d been in years ago. Eddie cringed at the thought of the dog drool on the ball and tried not to picture the billions of germs swimming around in it as he stooped down and gingerly picked up the ball, holding it with only the tips of his fingers. He threw it, and Molly took off after it. The two men started walking again, Eddie vigorously wiping his hand on his jeans. He wished he had his hand sanitizer with him, but the little bottle had gotten lost somewhere in the sewers beneath Derry, which he now knew was the fictional version of Bangor.

It was still hard, if not impossible, for him to wrap his mind around the notion that his hometown, and everything else he remembered, everything and everyone he had ever _known_, was all just a figment of someone else’s imagination. But he’d spent hours reading big parts of the book, and he was beginning to fear that he would eventually have to accept that it was true. The prospect of having to build a life for himself in this unknown world terrified him. He had nothing here, not even a social security number. No home, no job, no money. He knew no one. _Unless_… He stopped dead in his tracks when the thought hit him.

“Eddie? Everything okay?” King asked.

“Was I the only one of your characters to show up at your house?” Eddie could feel his heart pounding in his chest as he asked the question, remembering the complete lack of surprise the writer had shown when first confronted with Eddie in his home office.

“Actually… No. It’s happened before. One of my characters even saved my life once.” He lifted the cane a little. “If it hadn’t been for him, that van would have killed me.”

“Okay, but that was years ago, right?”

“Yeah, in 1999. Why?”

“So… no one other than me has shown up recently?” Eddie bit back his disappointment when the other man shook his head. “Shit.”

“Eddie, why is this so important to you?”

“I thought… You know, maybe Stan…? I mean, he’s dead too, so…”

Again, King shook his head. “Sorry.”

“But then why me?”

King sighed heavily. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that a lot myself. The best explanation I can come up with is that I’ve handled your character wrong.”

“Yeah, no shit! You killed me off!”

“That’s not what I meant. I kill a lot of characters off. Kind of comes with the territory of being a horror writer.” He bent down to take the ball from Molly again, but he didn’t throw it again immediately. The dog, apparently aware that playtime was over for now, plopped down on her belly at his feet and panted happily.

Eddie scrubbed his hands over his face. “Fine. Then what else did you do to me that was so awful?”

King was quiet for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “You know, I was just as shocked as you were when Stan decided to end his own life.”

“Yeah, right.”

“It’s true. When I write a story, it’s not like I _control_ it.” King shrugged awkwardly. “I’ve always felt more like an archeologist than a writer. The stories are already there, and all I’m doing is dig them up. And as crazy as it may sound, most of my characters make their own decisions. Like Stan did, unfortunately. I can’t control them anymore than I can control the direction the story takes. But sometimes I try to push them into stuff they don’t want to do anyway. Like I did with you.”

Eddie remembered all the times his mom or Myra had made him do things he didn’t really want to do and smiled bitterly. “Story of my life,” he said.

“I know. I wrote it.” King said dryly. Before Eddie could react, he grew serious again. “I’m sorry about that, Eddie. But remember how your mom used to call you _delicate_?”

Eddie nodded, thinking how weird it felt to have a complete stranger know everything about him, down to the tiniest detail. “Well, I _was_ delicate. Maybe I still am.”

“No, you’re not, you never were. She was dead wrong. You’re a lot stronger than you think.”

_You’re braver than you think_, Richie’s voice echoed in his head. “How do you know?”

“Because I did everything I could to fit you into a certain mold when I wrote you, and you still managed to slip out of it every chance you got. There were aspects of your true personality that kept shining through in the subtext of the book.”

“What aspects?”

King shook his head and averted Eddie’s eyes, instead opting to look at the 31 feet of ugliness that was the Bangor counterpart of Derry’s Paul Bunyan statue looming over the lawn on their right. “Things I was too much of a coward to put into the actual text for anyone to see.” He looked down at the tennis ball in his hand, then back at Eddie. “But you’ve gotta understand, it was the eighties. The political climate in those days… I just wanted people to read my books, I wasn’t interested in taking a stand.”

Eddie frowned, feeling a bit annoyed. “What’s so bad about me that people wouldn’t have read your books if you had kept it in?”

“Nothing. I’m not saying you’re a bad person or anything. Just… Different from the norm, back then.” He shook his head again when Eddie wanted to ask him how exactly he was different. “I can’t tell you, Eddie. I’m sorry, but I just can’t. I’ve messed you up enough. It’s time for me to step back and let you live your own life.”

Something in Eddie finally snapped, and all the anxiety he’d been feeling since he’d died suddenly turned into rage. His jaws clenched and his eyes narrowed, he got right up in King’s face, forcing the taller man to step back. “My own life? _What_ life? In case you hadn’t noticed, I don’t _have_ a fucking life! I’m _dead_! Because _you killed me off_!” His voice grew louder with each sentence, and an elderly woman walking her chihuahua gave them an uncomfortable glance and a wide berth as she passed them.

“Eddie, calm down…”

“Don’t you fucking tell me to calm down! I’ve _had_ it with people telling me what to do and how to live my fucking life!” He stormed off after the woman with the chihuahua, who threw a nervous look over her shoulder and started to speed walk towards the nearest park exit. He hadn’t even made it 30 feet when he realized he had nowhere to go but back to King’s house. “Fuck,” he muttered under his breath as he slowed down and came to a stop, his rage dissolving into a bone-deep exhaustion just as quickly as it had burst to the surface only moments ago.

“Eddie?”

“Don’t you dare ask me if I’m okay.” He turned to face King, who still stood in the same spot, Molly sitting at attention at his feet. “I’m not okay. I’m tired. I’m scared. I just…” He sighed heavily, let his head hang and looked at the cracks in the concrete beneath his feet. “I just want to go home.”

“I know.” King hesitated, then said, “And I don’t want to get your hopes up, but… There might be a way to get you there.”

Eddie just stared at him for a second, trying to figure out if he’d heard that right.

King looked at his cane, then back at Eddie. “Remember how I told you one of my characters saved my life? He came from a universe where there were doors leading to other worlds. Including this one. There was another boy in that story, an artist. He once drew a picture of a door, and it became real and allowed a woman to escape to the world she preferred to live in.”

Magic doors. A week ago, Eddie would have mocked the idea. But a week ago, he’d been living a safe life that didn’t require any magic. So now he just asked, “And you think he can draw me a magic door like that as well?”

“No. He can’t. I mean, maybe he could, but I don’t even know what world he’s in right now. But I think that maybe… I can _write_ you a door like that.”

§§§

King immediately went home to try and write his magic door into existence, saying that he needed to be alone for that. So Eddie spent the afternoon on his own, wandering the streets of Bangor and unsuccessfully trying to push back the hope that had bloomed inside him. He didn’t worry about getting lost, as he’d always had an eerily good sense of direction. Plus, as the afternoon progressed, he discovered places he knew. He walked along the Canal and spent some time reading the initials carved out in the Kissing Bridge, then walked on to Main Street and saw that the Capitol was also there, arcade and all. But there were differences between Bangor and Derry as well. Keene’s pharmacy was missing, as was the Townhouse hotel. He found the mall that, in his own reality, housed the Jade of the Orient. But the restaurant itself wasn’t there. The Barrens were also gone, an industrial area in their place, and that discovery made Eddie draw Richie’s jacket tighter around himself as sadness washed over him. He’d spent some of the happiest days of his childhood there, after all.

When the sun started to set, he wandered back to King’s house, cold goosebumps breaking out all over his body when it came into view and he realized that there was one more similarity between Bangor and Derry. The house was located on Bangor’s version of Neibolt Street, in the exact same spot as a certain dilapidated house he hoped never to set foot in again.

As soon as he stepped through the gate, he became aware of a change in the air around him. It felt… charged, buzzing with an energy that made the hairs on his arms stand up and his skin tingle. The wounds in his chest and cheek, which hadn’t bothered him at all in the past days, started to throb. As he walked up to the house, the feeling grew stronger with each step he took.

He reached the front door and it swung open as if on cue, King appearing in the doorway, looking slightly disheveled, his hair messy as if he’d repeatedly shoved his hands through it. He also looked _younger_ somehow. His eyes were bright, and there was a smile on his face. From somewhere in the house behind him came the sound of Molly yapping. “Do you feel it, Eddie?” the writer asked, barely contained elation in his voice.

Eddie’s heart started thudding in his chest, and he had to clear his throat before he could speak. “It… It worked?”

“Come and see for yourself.” King stepped aside to let him in, then led him to his office.

The door appeared to be standing on its own, smack dab in the middle of the room. It looked harmless enough, Eddie supposed, considering that it was a fucking _magic door_. The wood looked faded, like it was hundreds of years old. It had an iron doorknob. No keyhole that he saw. And there was a sign on it with symbols that Eddie couldn’t decipher.

“It looks just how I always imagined the doors that Roland found on the beach,” King said.

_Roland_? Eddie wondered vaguely, but he didn’t bother asking. He reached out and put his shaking hand on the door, immediately withdrawing it again when he felt the wood vibrate against his palm. The symbols on the sign seemed to flicker before his eyes at his touch, and he could almost read them. “What does the sign say?” he asked.

“I don’t really know. It just seemed right to put it in, so I did. It looks like High Speech though.”

“High Speech?”

“It’s a language from…”

“Let me guess. One of your stories.”

“Yeah.”

They both looked at the door in silence for a moment. Up until now, Eddie hadn’t really dared to let himself believe that it could actually work, that going back to his life would be as easy as stepping through a door, but the energy radiating from it convinced him that it would. “Maybe it says _Home_.”

“Could be. But, Eddie, the world behind that door… It may be different than you remember.”

“Different how?”

“I don’t know. All I did was create the door. I did it with the universe where you came from in mind, but… That’s technically not the one I created back when I first wrote the story. It’s Andy’s take on what I wrote. It’s very likely that there will be… unforeseen consequences to me reimagining that version yet again,especially because I also have the other versions in my mind. They may have gotten mixed up, or altered in other ways.””

Right. The catch. Because in situations like this, there was always a catch, wasn’t there? Eddie had seen enough movies to know this. He pinched the bridge of his nose as he thought hard about it. “So what’s the difference between what you originally wrote and what this Andy guy made?”

“Well, the time period for one. You could end up anywhere between 1958 and 2019. The people you knew could be aged anywhere between eleven and seventy. I just don’t know. There’s three versions of the story and the characters, three different versions of _you_... and they’re all different.”

Eddie looked back and forth between the door and the writer. “Any chance that you could get it completely right if you tried again?”

“I’m afraid not. I’m not even sure trying again would even work.”

“Well. Then I don’t really have a ton of options, do I? It’s either take my chances with what’s behind that door or be stuck here forever.”

“That about sums it up.”

Eddie thought it over one last time, but there was just no way to do a proper risk analysis. Too many unknown variables. Plus, he was homesick, plain and simple. “Yeah. I think I’ll take my chances.”

King nodded. “I thought you might say that. Here,” he reached for an envelope that lay on top of his desk. “Take this with you.”

“What is it?”

King shrugged. “Some money.”

“I have my credit card.” Eddie patted his jean pocket, where his wallet was.

“Take it, just in case.” King handed over the envelope.

“Thanks,” Eddie put the envelope in his inside pocket, looked back at King and cleared his throat. “Okay, well, guess this is it, then. Thank you for… everything. Well, except killing me, of course.”

“Of course.” King gave him a warm smile. “Can I give you a piece of… well, travel advice?”

“Sure.”

“There’s one thing that all three versions of you have in common. And I think you should focus on that, if things go wrong.”

“Okay, what is it?”

“Not what, _who_. Your one true love. Or soulmate, if you prefer that term. I think if you find that person, you’ll be alright no matter where you end up.”

“My…?” Eddie wanted to laugh, but he could see that the other was being serious. “Sorry man, but that sounds cheesy as hell.”

King chuckled, then shrugged. “Yeah, well. There’s a reason I write horror instead of romance. But that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in love being the driving force in every universe. Just remember it if you run into any problems.”

Eddie nodded, his throat suddenly tight. He opened his mouth to say his final goodbye, when the door suddenly flickered.

“Seems like you’re running out of time. Go, quickly!” King said.

Eddie swallowed hard and put his hand on the doorknob. The flickering stopped. The vibrating he’d felt earlier, however, intensified until he could feel it in every fiber of his being. He looked back at King one more time. “Thanks,” he said again, and saw the other man raise his hand in answer.

Eddie took a deep breath, turned the knob and pulled. Bright light started leaking in past the edges of the opening door and he raised his hand to shield his eyes from it, turning his head away instinctively. As he did so, the sign on the door caught his eye again and he found he could easily read it now. It said

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, I didn't forget to write the rest of that last sentence. This is really the end of the chapter. 
> 
> Please comment and tell me your thoughts on this chapter, I take constructive criticism :)
> 
> If you like, you can also come hang out with me on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/lacinderel)!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie finds himself on familiar ground... But is this really the world he left behind?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New note added at the end of this chapter on November 26.

_Neibolt Street_.

That’s what the sign on the door said, and as an invisible force grabbed onto him and pulled him through the door Eddie had time to think, _Fuck, not there again_, but it actually made sense, didn’t it? He heard the door slam shut behind him after he stumbled through it and into the light, hoping and praying with all that was in him that he wouldn’t end right up where he’d started, impaled in the cavern below the house and dying.

He didn’t.

He caught his balance, blinked against the blinding sunlight until his eyes adjusted, and found himself standing in the front yard of 29 Neibolt Street – or what was left of it, anyway. The house had turned into a pile of rubble, Eddie saw when he turned in a slow circle, scanning his surroundings for any sign of danger. But there was none. The street was deserted, nothing to see, no sound but the wind reaching his ears. The door was gone, like it had never existed.

It was almost anticlimactic.

“I made it,” he said out loud, just to hear his own voice in the silence. Relief slammed into him then, as if it had waited for confirmation before making itself known. His knees threatened to buckle but he locked them, knowing he couldn’t just assume that everything was really alright now. Sure, he was definitely in Derry, but was it the same Derry he’d left behind? The quickest way to find out was to get his ass over to the Town House and see if his friends were still there. They wouldn’t have just skipped town right away after defeating It, right?

_What if they _didn’t_ defeat It? What if you’re in the wrong universe after all, and in this one they all died?_

Just like that, his relief melted away and anxiety set in. His lungs constricted, and he had to do his best to not start hyperventilating. He put a hand on his chest and one on his stomach, focusing on evening out his breaths, on pausing between breaths, anything to stop a full-on panic attack from happening.

As his breathing slowly began to return back to normal, he noticed that there was no hole in his chest. He felt around a little, just to make sure. Nope. No hole. Instead, he felt a mass of puckered scar tissue beneath his fingertips. He brought his hand up to his cheek. The bandage was still there, and he hesitated only momentarily before ripping it off. No wound there either, just another scar.

_Huh_. At least he didn’t have to worry about his wounds getting infected anymore. He breathed a relieved sigh at that thought, his chest still feeling a bit tight but nowhere near as bad as it had felt a minute ago. Good. So, to sum up. He was alive, his wounds were gone, he was breathing right. So far, only good things had happened to him since coming through that door. There was no reason to freak out just yet.

“Okay, Eds, you got this,” he told himself. After all, it was just a walk through his hometown on a sunny day, right? Right. Nothing to worry about. Willing his legs not to shake, he started walking.

Derry had changed. He felt it as soon as he made his way downtown. The change wasn’t tangible, it was just something in the air. It felt lighter, somehow, like a dark veil had been lifted. The few people he encountered seemed happier than he remembered. As he walked on, past Keene’s pharmacy, he breathed easier. This change had to mean that his friends had managed to defeat the ancient evil that had been living beneath the town, didn’t it?

He rounded the corner to the street where the Derry Town House was, and his pace quickened. He couldn’t wait to reunite with his friends, to see the surprise on everyone’s faces when they saw him, alive and unhurt.

Then the Town House came into view and he stopped dead in his tracks.

The hotel had changed too, but not in a good way. When Eddie had last seen the building’s exterior, it had looked like exactly what it was: an outdated hotel that could use a lick of paint but was otherwise decently maintained. He now found himself looking at boarded-up doors and windows, faded graffiti spray painted over the boards. Cracks lined the nondescript grayish walls. The steps leading up to the front door had weeds overgrowing them and the bushes surrounding the building looked like they hadn’t been trimmed in years.

In short, there was no fucking way he’d find the other Losers here. Or his luggage, for that matter.

He slowly made it over to the steps and sank down on the bottom one, for once not caring about getting his clothes dirty. It was all just too much. Everything he’d gone through in the past days caught up with him at once, getting too heavy to bear, and tears started leaking from his eyes. He put his face in his hands – and froze.

Since when was he wearing glasses?

He gingerly took them off, the world around him instantly going blurry. Apparently, he really needed glasses in this version of his life. Whoever had designed them appeared to have had trouble deciding whether the lenses should be square or round and had landed somewhere in the middle. They were fitted into a plain light-metal frame. Boring, sensible glasses that went with any outfit, the kind Myra or his mother would probably have picked out for him to wear.

He wiped away his tears and put the glasses back on with a shaky sigh. Then he just sat there, numb and wondering what other discoveries awaited him. It was safe to say that his reality had been at the very least slightly altered, and he didn’t have the faintest clue of what to do next. He closed his eyes, needing to shut out the world, if only for a minute.

But he must have dozed off for longer than that, because when he became aware of his surroundings again, he felt stiff and a chill had crept into the air. Dusk was setting in and he drew Richie’s jacket tighter around himself, as much to protect himself from the cold as to feel comforted by the now-familiar weight of the leather.

“Hey! You, on the steps!” A voice suddenly rang out from across the street, and Eddie jumped. An old woman in a floral dress and a cardigan that had seen better days stood looking at him, her nose scrunched up, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. With a start, he realized she looked vaguely familiar. “If you don’t leave now, I’m calling the cops! That is private property, you hear?” She looked him up and down when he stumbled to his feet and almost lost his balance again because his legs had gone numb, her nose scrunching up even further. “There’s a shelter three blocks that way. You can sleep it off there,” she informed him curtly, thumbing over her shoulder.

“Oh, no, I wasn’t… I’m not…” Eddie took a few weaving steps in her direction, smiling what he hoped was a friendly and non-threatening smile, but she backed away from him. The streetlights came on then, and a sudden burst of recognition had him reeling when he got a good look at her face. “Mrs. Johnson? Is that you?”

“How do you know my name?”

“It’s me, Eddie! I lived next door to you as a kid! Remember? Me and my mom, Sonia?” His memories of her weren’t particularly fond, but it was still great to finally see a face he recognized.

“The Kaspbrak woman?” When Eddie nodded, she looked him up and down again. “I remember her. And that boy, too. You look nothing like him. Now scram, before I call the cops.”

“But…”

She put a hand in the pocket of her cardigan, took out an old flip phone and looked at him pointedly. “Go.”

Eddie went. He didn’t need the added complication of being questioned by the police. When he looked back, she was still standing there, her eyes shooting daggers at him. “Yeah, fuck you too,” he muttered. Had he really thought Derry’s inhabitants seemed happier? Well, at least he now knew that some version of him and his mother had at one point existed in this universe. That was something, he supposed.

§§§

He found a cheap motel on the outskirts of town and paid for a room with some of the money King had given him. The room wasn’t much, but it beat a homeless shelter. He went straight into the bathroom to take a shower, and it was when he accidentally looked at the mirror hanging over the sink that he got his next shock.

A stranger stared back at him.

“What the fuck?” Eddie put a hand on his hair, and the blond guy in the mirror did the same. The baffled expression on the man’s face looked exactly like Eddie felt, so he had to assume that it really was his own reflection and not some trick. Apparently, he was blond now, although his hairstyle was the same as he’d worn for years. He stepped closer to the mirror, examining the rest of his features. His eyes and mouth looked the same as they always had, but his chin was pointier, and his nose decidedly bigger. His ears stuck out more than he was used to, and the shape of his face was rounder. The changes were big enough that, combined with the glasses, he doubted if even his own mother would have recognized him.

He stared at his reflection for a while longer, touching his new face and waiting for his inevitable freak out. But it seemed there was not enough adrenalin left in his system to properly freak out, so instead he just dropped his hands, turned away from the mirror and started undressing to take that shower he wanted. His body looked the same as it always had, maybe his shoulders were a bit wider, but that was it. That was kind of a relief. As for his face… He was stuck with it now, wasn’t he? It wasn’t like he could just march back into King’s office and demand his own face back. He’d just avoid mirrors for the time being. And later, well, maybe dye his hair back to his normal color and get contacts instead of glasses? Whatever. He’d make it work somehow.

After his shower, Eddie put on his clothes again and went in search of food. He found a vending machine that had granola bars and ate three, washing them down with a bottle of Coke. Not the most nutritious or satisfying meal in the world, but it would have to do for now. And at least it made him feel a little less shaky on his legs.

Back in his room, he turned on the TV and sat on the bed, aimlessly flipping through channels as he tried to come up with a course of action for the next day. He couldn’t keep wandering around and wait for things to happen to him, that much was clear. King had written him a door so he could take his life back, so that’s what he’d do. Eventually. He’d just take it one day at a time for now. Baby steps and all that – wait. His finger paused on the remote, something on the screen catching his eye.

It was the local news channel, and a reporter was standing outside the library. Eddie turned up the volume to hear what she was talking about.

“…by Bill Denbrough, who was born here in Derry. The exhibition will be officially opened by the mayor this Friday. Denbrough himself will not be attending but is scheduled to do a signing of his new book right here in the library in December. Back to you, Dan.”

He switched the TV off, unable to wipe the smile from his face. Whatever universe he’d landed in, Bill was here too. And seeing the library had suddenly made his first step crystal clear.

§§§

He woke at the crack of dawn, feeling more rested than he had expected. He showered, put on his clothes, finger-combed his hair and wished he had a toothbrush. He’d buy one today, along with some new clothes. But first, he had other business to attend to.

He left the motel and walked back into town, enjoying the sense of purpose he felt and the cool air on his face. When he got to the library, it wasn’t open yet, so he decided to get coffee and breakfast in the café across the street while he waited. The waitress brought him his omelet and he dug in with gusto, tuning out the part of his brain that sounded like Myra worriedly warning him about risking a heart attack if he kept eating unhealthy food. He knew he should probably call his wife, let her know he was alive, but he felt strangely reluctant to do so. Which was weird, because she was the love of his life… Wasn’t she? His soulmate, as King had put it. Eddie wasn’t sure he really believed in that shit, but he’d been married to Myra for almost a decade, so that had to count for something, right? Still, he didn’t really feel a very deep need to call her. But he’d worry about all that later. It wasn’t like he had his phone anyway. It had gotten lost along with all his other stuff. He’d call her with the new one he intended to buy. With that settled, he finished his breakfast, downed his second cup of coffee and went across the street.

“Good morning.” The college-aged girl behind the librarian’s desk gave him a pleasant smile when he walked in. “How can I help you?”

“Hi. I’m looking for Mike Hanlon.” Eddie said. The girl gave him a blank stare and his heart sank.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know anybody by that name.” She perked up. “But I haven’t worked here for that long. One sec, I’ll ask my supervisor.” She picked up the phone and dialed, giving him another smile as she waited for her supervisor to pick up. “Hi, it’s Sally, I have someone here to see a Mike…?”

“Hanlon.” Eddie supplied, and she repeated it into the phone.

“Okay, thanks, I’ll tell him.” She put down the phone and turned back to him. “My supervisor is on her way down.”

Eddie didn’t have to wait long before a door behind the desk opened and a woman in her sixties emerged. She introduced herself as Eileen Roberts, head librarian. “So, you are looking for Mike Hanlon?”

“Yes, does he still work here?”

“I’m afraid not. Why are you looking for him?”

“I’m an old friend.”

“Well, then you should already know that he moved away.”

“We um, fell out of touch a while ago. But I was passing through here, so I thought I’d come see him. When did he move away?”

“Let’s see… Three years ago, I think? Yes, 2016. Not long after… Anyway, he’s in Florida now.”

_Good for you, Mikey_, Eddie thought, even as he felt a pang of disappointment that he would not be seeing his friend today after all. “Not long after what?” he asked.

“Are you a reporter?”

“What? No! I’m a risk analyst. Why?”

“We had a lot of reporters barging in here back then. And again now. But that’s okay, I guess, they’re not interested in old news, they just want to know about the exhibition we’ve put together around Bill Denbrough. He’s a famous horror writer who was born here.”

“I know. I was born here too. I was actually friends with Bill growing up. Him and Mike and some others.”

Mrs. Roberts mulled that over, then sighed. “Okay. Well, I don’t like to gossip, but it’s not like you can’t look it up online yourself, so I might as well tell you. It was quite the drama, actually. A mental patient escaped from Juniper Hill and broke into the library for some reason. Almost killed Mike. But Mike managed to kill him instead. Was arrested for it, too. They let him go eventually, of course, it was a clear case of self-defense. But it was quite the traumatic experience for him, so I don’t blame him for packing up and leaving.”

“Me neither,” Eddie said, absently because his mind had gone into overdrive and he had to consciously tighten his muscles to stop himself from bouncing up and down in sudden excitement. This was after all the first time he’d actually gotten some solid confirmation that at least part of what he remembered had in fact really happened in this reality. Because she had to be talking about Henry Bowers, right? Sure, she also said that Mike had killed Bowers, when he knew for a fact that it had been Richie, but that was probably just Mike taking the blame for it to protect Richie or something. “And this happened three years ago?”

“Yes. 2016 was a bad year for Derry.”

Eddie’s excitement grew. Maybe, just maybe, he’d landed in exactly the right universe after all, only three years later?

“How so?” he asked, because Mrs. Roberts was looking at him expectantly. For someone who didn’t like to gossip, she seemed very eager to talk.

“A lot of kids disappeared that summer. Little Vicky Fuller lived right down the street from me. Disappeared right from under her mother’s eyes, at a baseball game. Her body, and all the others, were found in the Barrens later. Police said some pervert had probably taken them all. Word around town is that some of them were missing limbs, others had _horrible_ bite marks all over them. It was like the summer of ’89 all over again… And, oh, there was also that gay man who got slaughtered, Adrian something or other.”

“Adrian Mellon, I think.” Eddie said, before he could stop himself.

“Oh, yes, that sounds right…” Mrs. Roberts blinked. “How would you know his name?”

“Uh… I, um, saw it on the news, I think.”

“Right.” But he could see she wasn’t buying it. “Well, Mr.… Kaspbrak, was it? It was nice talking to you, but I have lots of stuff to do, so…”

“Sure, I’ll just get out of your way then. Oh, do you happen to have Mike’s contact info?”

“No. Now, if you’ll excuse me?” Not waiting for his reaction, she turned and strode off.

Sally smiled at him. “Don’t take it personal,” she said, “Eileen just really hates reporters.”

“But I’m not a… Never mind. Thanks for your help.”

Eddie walked out the door, feeling his excitement fade a little more with each step he took as the fact that he’d been gone for three whole years began to really sink in. Three years was a pretty long time. The Losers had probably already moved on with their lives. Even Mike had finally left Derry. Did they even remember him, or each other for that matter? After all, the last time they’d all left here, they had completely forgotten each other for more than twenty years. Even if by some miracle they did remember now, it wasn’t exactly fair to them to show up on one of their doorsteps unannounced and uproot their lives again. Also, he thought as he caught a glimpse of his reflection in a shop window, they probably wouldn’t even recognize him.

That really left him with only one option. Maybe that was the most logical and rational option too. He’d walked through that magic door because he wanted his life back. And his life wasn’t in Derry, it hadn’t been here since ’92.

His life was in New York.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So - Eddie's new looks. Imagine someone with mad Photoshop skills mashing up the faces of James Ransone, Dennis Christopher (Miniseries Eddie) and Anthony Perkins (the actor that Book Eddie is supposed to look like). That remix is what he looks like now.
> 
> Also, yes, this will eventually be a Reddie story, don't worry!
> 
> **ADDED NOTE, November 26: it is taking me forever to update, sorry!!! I am still working on this, but am also very busy with work, so I don’t have much time to write. And when I do find time, my mind won’t always cooperate.**

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know how often I will be able to update this fic, but I will do my best to update as often as possible. 
> 
> Want to talk more about this fic, IT, Reddie, Stephen King or whatever? Come find me [on Tumblr](https://lacinderel.tumblr.com)!


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